Hundreds of people are being evacuated after a levee broke in a northern New Jersey town early Tuesday. Bergen County executive chief of staff Jeanne Baratta tells The Record newspaper the entire town of Moonachie is under water and as many as 1,000 people could need to be evacuated.

WHY does this scene play out during every hurriane?
WHY don’t folks evacuate?
Is it because of the traffic?
That was pointed out to me just before Katrina - that the traffic was so horrible that folks would run out of gas and be stranded trying to evacuate.

No doubt... I was really disappointed by some of the posts I’ve read on the threads over the last 24 hours. Don’t people get it? It’s not JUST RAIN - especially when you’ve got so many millions of people packed into such a small area. The risks associated with damage FROM the storm - like fire (as we’re seeing in Rockaway Beach), from downed power lines, collapsing buildings, etc... Sad that so many didn’t seem to listen to the warnings - makes the FDNY and other department’s jobs so much harder, too.

Would you rather sit in your home where you have a generator, a tractor,a chain saw, your own supply of food and water, you are above the flood plain,or go to a shelter and place yourself at the mercy of the Government with a pack of strangers in a school building that was probably built by a low bidder?

WHY does this scene play out during every hurriane? WHY dont folks evacuate? Is it because of the traffic?

It's because the main stream media, particulalry in the NYC area, over-hypes every weather hiccup, so that when the big storm really does bear down on the area, the people shrug their shoulders and yawn.

Good points....We choose where we live. I chose on a rock,
on a hill. It has strategic, as well as physical advantages.
Those who choose low ground, or flood plains just have to be prepared to leave, before the SHTF.

17
posted on 10/30/2012 5:25:30 AM PDT
by Fireone
(Impeach and imprison, NOW! Treason and murder are still crimes.)

I am noticing that any serious damage done by this storm is limited to a pretty tight area. NYC had some flooding, a bunch of row houses were burned down by the same fire in Queens, and now this levee. Anything else I’m missing?

Was this, at a national scale, a non-event? Seems like the Colorado fires were a MUCH worse disaster.

Not really. There’s damage and power outages from New England to North Carolina and west into West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and it’s not over yet...there’s still the potential for inland flooding in Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and New England on up into Canada as Sandy heads west and then north.

It served up a worst-case scenario for the NYC metro area in that Sandy hit near high tide on a night with a full moon to make the tides even worse. The tide gauge at Battery Park broke the 52-year-old record from Hurricane Donna by almost *four feet*. A lot of the NYC metro area is without power, the subways are flooded, the underground infrastructure is flooded.

This is not a Katrina or an Andrew in terms of massive loss of life or leveling everything in sight. But it is a very large storm that is going to cause a lot of financial damage due to the flooding in densely-populated urban areas, and a lot of disruption.

I truly believe that if the Yellowstone super volcano was to explode in a Krakatoa like event that there are a solid group of FReepers who will thump their chest and tell you it isnt all that bad or outright claim the whole thing is exaggerated. I wouldnt be surprise to hear them go up to the Lord after Armageddon and say: Lord why all the hype in the Book of Revelations? I mean it wasnt all that bad.

Worse yet is all of the ODS Ive seen here on FR. Yes Bama is horrible, yes he HAS GOT TO GO, but these people act like Bama either conjurered up the storm or the whole thing is some Machiavellian plot out of a bad suspense novel. LIFE goes on, things happen. The storm doesnt know or care that its election time or what BAMA has done to this country.

I wouldnt be surprised to hear of people who believed so much that the hurricane is just some leftist plot that they are caught unprepared for the storm and dying as a result of it crying out Its Obamas fault with their last breath!

Some seem to have reached a point where if they go to the doctor next week and he tells them that they have cancer it will be Obamas fault! Or if they have a flat tire on the way to work next week it will be Obamas fault! If you step on a crack and break your mothers back it will be Obamas fault!

To me this is the talk, methods and the mindset of the leftist. Its the same shill BS they spewed against George Bush. I thought we are better than that. I know we should be better than that. I am sure that we can be better than that.

The other thing I notice is that is the me, me, me mindset so many seem to be taking with this storm. Hell this storm will most likely KILL people and heres people who are supposedly conservatives sounding like leftist. Everything is me me me. How is the Hurricane going to effect the election? And so on its sickening. So people are going to die and homes get lost and peoples lives get turned upside down and inside out, well thats bad but how is it going to effect me? I guess it doesnt matter what losses occur as long as it doesnt effect the election. Seems many on FR have their priorities screwed up.

Any disaster in non-flyover country (the Northeast and Southern California) is overhyped by the MSM. Hundreds of square miles of Colorado might burn down, but a few dozen homes in Queens will get more coverage. A hurricane can flatten thousands of homes in Florida, and a tornado do similar damage in Missouri, but a few roofs lost in New Jersey will get more coverage. The MSM’s focus on their home regions is as predictable as their liberal bias.

I don’t think the town of Moonachie was under an evac order... until they were underwater.

They’re at an elevation of like 10’, as I recall.

There are large swathes of New Jersey’s coastline that are at low elevations above sea level, and a really large storm surge at high tide (which is what happened here) are going to make a bunch of the rivers and major streams in that area of NJ literally run backwards - which lots of people don’t expect or plan for.

So you’re a municipal official, thinking “Hey, we’re dozens of miles inland off the shore... we don’t have much to worry about except the drenching rain and the usual minor flooding we have every other year in the spring rains around here...”

Until the river or stream runs uphill, and you find out that, yes, there were reasons to be very worried.

Im glad to hear that! Glad you have that Coleman grill  thats a good thing to have in an emergency. Stay safe.

Im still waiting for news about my cousin and his family who live in Little Flower where there has been evacuations and rescues, flooding due to a levee break and from my brother who lives just west of Point Pleasant.

It made me very angry to see some people here saying that a major disaster in the NE would be no big deal because all those people are just liberals, they live in Blue States and so they deserve it. I know a lot of people, much like you and my cousin and brother in the NE who are conservatives. But in any case, I dont wish death, property damage and misery on anyone.

We were without electric power for about four days after a big snow storm took down power lines across Missouri a few years ago. I had some frozen soup that was easy to prepare on our wood stove.
After things were repaired, the utility cut back thousands of trees that had grown up in the power line rights of ways.

36
posted on 10/30/2012 5:52:32 AM PDT
by Eric in the Ozarks
(In the game of life, there are no betting limits)

One thing to think about with Sandy...this one weather system, hurricane, Frankenstorm, whatever you call it, was producing flooding and hurricane wind conditions in New York City, heavy snow in the mountains of northeast Tennessee, and massive waves on Lake Michigan AT THE SAME TIME. That’s not “just a cat 1 hurricane” no matter how you slice it.

well, we in Louisiana deal with this alot. We have never evacuated. It is harder than you can imagine to leave your home, your history, all you have. Somehow you want to be there to protect it as best you can. And given the large population affected, few die. Even Katrina, there were relatively few deaths considering the sheer number of people affected. The aftermath is horrible but I feel better about being in my place ready to protect it than veing in a shelter not knowing.

In Wyoming, because we so frequently get winds as high or higher than what NYC/NJ is coping with right now (and we don’t call them ‘hurricanes’ - we call it ‘winter’ and it comes for months every year) the utilities ruthlessly prune trees that are in the power line right-of-ways every year.

I mean *ruthlessly* prune. They’re not above taking down the top half of a tree and leaving you to ponder what to do with the bottom half.

As a result, the power reliabilities are pretty good, all things considered.

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